


when the sun came up, I was looking at you

by wibbelkind



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibbelkind/pseuds/wibbelkind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe this is why he’s been depressed, he thinks. Every night he turns to this empty, barren world, where the sun never seems to shine because it’s either just night or dark clouds are looming over the hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. when the sun came up, I was looking at you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BillieShears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BillieShears/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The World Repeats](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356100) by [BillieShears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BillieShears/pseuds/BillieShears). 



> So the lovely BillieShears wrote this amazing [soulmate AU for Beadick](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356100/chapters/8011953), it’s just brilliant, go read it. And then aeternamente wrote an [inspired drabble for Pedrazar](http://aeternamente.tumblr.com/post/114804824152/sunshine), also brilliant.
> 
> Now here I am with a sort of ficlet for - you guessed it - Donalduke. Set in the same soulmate AU but also with reference to begin again. It’s sort of an AU in an AU I guess? So basically it’s not really happening in begin again but also based on the events happening in begin again? Am I making sense? I don’t know, here’s the thing.

His dreamscape has been dark ever since his mother died. They used to run around on the hills that equalled the ones in the Lake District, laughing, playing tag and flying kites. But that was a long time ago. There are no flowers blooming in his dreamscape any more, the trees aren't carrying any leaves, not since his soulmate has died.

Maybe this is why he's been depressed, he thinks. Every night he turns to this empty, barren world, where the sun never seems to shine because it's either just night or dark clouds are looming over the hills. Most of the time he just curls up at the foot of what used to be his mother's favourite tree, closing his eyes and trying to ignore everything. He counts himself lucky when he doesn't dream at all.

 

The thing with Hero Duke is that their lives always seemed to pass by each other, never truly crossing paths. Sure, his dad's family and her family went way back, but he never truly seemed to be a part of that. They met during family barbecues and dinner parties and new years celebrations but barely exchanged a word.

And then he had hurt her, unintentionally. She had become collateral damage in his plan to ruin his brother's reputation, something he had never planned for. Her forgiveness was unexpected, her friendliness towards him in their last year of school even more so. But that didn't mean they were connected. In the end she went away to uni and he spent a gap year in England.

 

So when he meets her again, that summer day in the Massey CoCA studios, working on his art, it's something different. She looks like she hasn't changed a bit but it feels like she has. Her smile is still as bright as the sun, her attention as genuine as always. Maybe he's been trying to avoid crossing her path before but now he feels like there is no way around it. It's not like he doesn't want anything to do with Hero Duke, they're just people he doesn't think would work together well. In his eyes she's everything he's not and he knows that if he stands next to her for too long, people will notice it too.

But it happens. Their paths cross and he just hopes that maybe they will go back to careful avoidance afterwards. What he doesn't expect is meeting her again – the same night.

 

He knows something is off the moment he steps into his dreamscape. It's still the same hills, dark clouds overhead. But there are some strange lights fluttering around. _Fireflies_ , he realises. Where did they come from? He sits down at his usual spot, watching the tiny insects cover stones and trees and bushes.

“Hello?”

The voice nearly scares him and he jumps up, trying to spot the source of it. For a moment, nothing. Then a movement right next to him, something touching his arm. He nearly screams his head off.

“Jesus!”, the voice says. “You just scared me to death!”

He takes a deep breath, trying to stop his hands from shaking and his heartbeat to calm down.

“I could say the same about-”, he starts, turning to face the person standing next to him. “Hero?”

There are fireflies fluttering all around her face, making it look like she's got a halo. When she recognises his face, her lips turn into a smile.

“Hello John”, she says. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Well, it's **my** dreamscape”, he replies sarcastically. “What are **you** doing here?”

“What do you think I'm doing here?” She raises an eyebrow at him and he has never seen Hero Duke be so snarky towards anyone. Maybe that's what's changed about her. Her snark.

Suddenly it clicks in his head.

“Oh”, he just mutters.

 

“Why is it so dark in here?”, she asks on her second visit.

“It's always been dark”, he lies.

Hero just raises an eyebrow at him.

“Just because you're my soulmate doesn't mean I have to tell you”, he says. “Sometimes it's night, sometimes it's cloudy.”

“Never sun?”

“No.”

“You know I could just-”

“No.”

“But it's my dreamscape too.”

“I like it dark.”

That's a lie. He used to love his dreamscape, back when he was sharing it with his mum. It was sunny then, light all the time. Now it's just a faint memory of the past. In the beginning he had tried to change it, but he could never bring himself to part the clouds or raise a sun. So he'd gotten used to living in the dark.

“Can I at least turn on a light?”, Hero asks.

“Don't you think the fireflies are enough?”

“No.”

“Fine, turn on a light.”

Hero easily conjures a couple of paper lanterns hanging down from the branches of the tree they are sitting under. In his mind it's still his mum's tree. It's also their dreamscape. Hero is just intruding, somehow.

 

“Hero, why are there flowers everywhere?”

“I made them.”

“Don't you think that's a bit illogical considering the fact that they'll never see the sun?”

“I could just-”

“No.”

John turns around and marches off. Hero is messing with his dreamscape every time she comes in and it's slowly starting to get on his nerves. There are nights when she's not there, but he hasn't asked her about that.

It still doesn't feel like she's his soulmate and this is their dreamscape. Because it still looks the same. Except for the fireflies and the paper lanterns in the big tree and the flowers in the grass.

Hero has changed too. The first time she showed up, she was wearing a dress. Now she's wearing boots, leggings and an oversized sweater, much more practical. But he has to admit, with the sun gone, it's rather cold in his dreamscape.

 

Hero's not just slipping into his dreamscape, she's slipping into his real life as well.

He meets Moira, a girl from the South Island who's studying Fine Arts just like him, someone he thinks could be his soulmate but isn't. Hers is her brother Will, who's off in Australia to study.

“It's nice to see him every night”, she mentions with a smile. “Much easier than making skype calls.”

They may not be soulmates but they become close, closer than he has ever been with anyone except his mother. She convinces him to talk to Hero, really talk, because despite their meaningless chatter during the nights the burden of their past is still heavy on his heart.

And that's when things start to change.

 

One night he finds Hero sobbing under the tree. Slowly it has turned from being his mother's tree to being their tree, the place they always meet in the dreamscape.

“Hero?”

He crouches down in front of her. She looks up at him, her cheeks coated in tears.

“Fuck”, she mutters. “I thought I might just... Fuck.”

She wipes her hands over her face.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to-”

“Did you fall asleep crying?”, he asks without thinking, immediately wanting to slap himself.

“Yeah”, she replies. “I thought I might- never mind.”

“What?”

“It's silly. I- Bea's my soulmate too.”

“Oh. Okay...”

“I thought I might turn up in her and my dreamscape but- it's been hard, with her being halfway around the world. Sometimes I just hang out there alone, sometimes we meet by chance. She does these afternoon naps occasionally...”

“What's it like?”

“What?”

“Your dreamscape.”

“It's beautiful. It's this clearing in the forest and there's flowers, the sun is shining, birds are singing...” Hero lets out a soft sigh.

“I'm sorry this place sucks”, John says after a short pause. “It's just- I can't- I mean, I've tried, but-”

She looks at him, brushing strands of her hair out of her face.

“My mum used to be my soulmate”, he explains. “She died in a car crash when I was nine. I've been alone in here ever since – and it's been this dark here ever since. I just can't change it.”

“Oh John, I'm so sorry.”

It's barely a whisper out of Hero's mouth but she reaches out and pulls him into a hug. That's when it starts to snow.

 

Winter lasts almost three months in their dreamscape. Because that's what it is now. Their shared dreamscape. He knows Hero could probably make the snow disappear with a flick of her hand but instead she creates sledges, they have snowball fights and go iceskating on the frozen lake between the hills.

She's there for him the night of his breakdown, both in reality and then in his dreamscape. When all his tears are gone they sit at the foot of the tree, their breath showing in the cold air.

“I think it's time for spring”, Hero says. “Don't you think?”

“Hero, I can't-”

“I know. But I can.” She looks over at him. “May I?”

“Okay.”

With a smile she turns to face the sky. It's covered in dark grey clouds that are snowing heavily. That's what it's been like for the past months, always snowing. It's a surprise that they haven't been snowed in yet.

Hero takes a deep breath and then blows into the sky, sending the clouds into motion. The snowing stops, the cloud cover thins and finally there's just the dark night sky, covered in stars.

“Isn't it pretty?”

Hero nudges him and he can't help but smile, ever so slightly.

“What about-”, he starts, only to be interrupted by her.

“Just wait and see.”

And then, very slowly, in the distance behind the hills, it begins to dawn. The sky lightens, reddens and then with one last push, the sun rises in their dreamscape.

He looks over at Hero, her eyes shining in the golden light, taking in the sight of everything that has previously been hidden away in the darkness. In that moment, it's like she's finally arrived. She's his soulmate, not just some strange visitor. And this space is hers just as much as it is his.


	2. you can take me down with just one single blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore more and see how their dreamscape moves along with their relationship in "begin again". So here's another chapter. ;)
> 
> Trigger warning for physical and verbal abuse.

She hasn't been around for quite some time. Not in their dreamscape, not in his real life. Maybe she shares a dreamscape with Chris too, who knows? He doesn't ask. It's not a thing he's really in the position to ask, and if he cares, he pretends not to.

Hero's been doing a lot of “gardening” in their dreamscape though and he makes sure her cookie bushes and cupcake trees get enough water, her lemonade well doesn't run dry and the flock of fantails she has taught to sing “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift have enough to eat.

 

He knows she's back when it suddenly starts to pour while he wanders the forest, a new part of the dreamscape he has only recently created and then started to explore. Immediately he grabs his bike out of thin air and makes his way back to the tree. Their meeting point.

There she sits, a picture of misery, tinted in black and white, soaked from the rain.

“Hey, Hero!”

He crouches down next to her but she doesn't look up. Carefully he touches her shoulder and she shudders.

“Hero, what's wrong?”

There are steps behind him and he whips around. It takes him a moment to recognise the face of the person approaching them. Chris.

“What are you doing here?”, John hisses. It's always just them in their dreamscape, Hero and him. Never anybody else.

But Chris ignores him, steps right past him. He doesn't even seem like a real person. He appears slightly bigger than he is in real life, and just like Hero he's in black and white. But unlike her he's fading out at the edges. He's not real. More like a ghost.

“Come on, babe”, ghost-Chris says, pulling Hero up by the shoulders. “I've waited long enough.”

This elicits a reaction from Hero, trying to wind herself from his grip, apparently without success.

“Just get it over with!”, Chris snarls at her. “Don't be such a bitch!”

“HEY!”, John shouts, anger bubbling inside of him. “What the fuck? Leave her alone!”

For a moment there, he has ghost-Chris' attention, but it quickly changes back to Hero who is struggling to free herself from his grip.

“I said”, John repeats, pointedly but as calmly as possible, “leave her alone!”

But it's hopeless, he doesn't seem to have have any power in this situation. When he tries to pull back ghost-Chris by his shoulder, his hand goes right through. Ghostly indeed.

_Just a dream_ , John reminds himself. _Just a dream._ _I can wake up any time._

But from what he can tell, Chris is obviously a part of Hero's subconscious, a part that isn't listening to him, a part that is instead ignoring him and grabbing Hero's chin in one hand.

“I'm your boyfriend”, Chris spits out. “And I deserve what I asked for.”

In a swift motion he crushes his lips against Hero's, silencing her screams of protest.

 

John just stands there, shaking with anger and helplessness because he has never dealt with another person's bad dream, especially not Hero's. He doesn't realise it at first, that he's growing, bigger and bigger, taller, until he's looking down at the two of them. He's become a giant, their tree looks merely like an unusually big broccoli now and Hero and ghost-Chris are the size of dollhouse figurines.

“Oh”, he mutters. “How...?”

And then he understands, what he has to do. He reaches down, picking up both Hero and ghost-Chris, separating them like it's nothing. He puts Hero down in the breast pocket of his jumper, holding up a fidgeting Chris shouting obscenities at him.

“You”, John says, a sudden grin spreading on his face. He's got the power of this dreamscape now. “You don't belong here.”

And with that, he crushes ghost-Chris in his hand, crumbling him to dust.

He brushes his hands off on his jeans and then looks down at Hero in his breast pocket. She's still shaking and when he sqints he can see streams of tears running down her tiny dollhouse face.

“It's okay”, he mutters. “Let's get out of here.”

 

Being a giant has its perks. He's never been able to explore his dreamscape in its fullest, but now he strides across the hills easily. Only when he can see the the ocean, smell the salt in the air and hear the waves crashing against the cliffs, his figure changes again. He gets smaller and smaller and finally Hero is walking next to him, wiping her eyes.

They sit down on the grass at the top of the cliff and John pulls a blanket around Hero before creating a campfire to warm them. He's still struggling with the dreamscape occasionally but he's gotten a lot better at it and right now he can feel the power that dreaming gives him flowing through his veins.

He makes hot cocoa in a kettle over the campfire and they just sit there, staring at the flames, holding big steaming mugs in their hands. Slowly, Hero turns back to colour from being black and white.

“Thank you”, she finally says. “I'm sorry you had to see that.”

“Hero.”

Her name comes out like a sigh.

“You spent months in this dreamscape while it was dark”, he says. “Half of the time it was winter as well. You've seen me at my worst. It's okay.”

She looks over at him, a teary smile on her face.

 

Hero breaks up with Chris on Monday. John comes by with cake in the evening. He's never been particularly good at comforting people, but he knows how to fight her nightmares now. And as long as that's all she needs from him, he's there, watching over their dreamscape.

 


End file.
